Michael Colreavy (Sligo-North Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming before us today. I will focus on schoolchildren. I represent a community where, unfortunately, in the recent past three young people died and there was certainly a prima facie case that cyberbullying was a contributory part, if not a major part, in the young people's decision to end their lives. Something so traumatic in our community made us wonder what we were doing and what we should do differently. The challenge for the Government, and for us all, is to ensure that people's basic rights can be safeguarded, that serious or persistent damaging behaviour can be addressed, all the while ensuring that the right to freedom of expression and freedom of access to information is not harmed. It is a question of respect. We are considering cyberbullying here but I am aware that there are many more stresses on people, whether they be financial ones or cutbacks in, for example, the number of guidance counsellors in schools. There is a need for greater communications and joint work between statutory groups and voluntary agencies.

The Minister's office and the Department of Education and Skills might be able to examine a further stress point. Although we are installing hardware in schools, we do not seem to have a structured system as part of the school curriculum for training youngsters in the safe and respectful use of social media. Research was published in May 2008. It surveyed nearly 2,800 students from eight post-primary schools. The figures were frightening. One in seven students reported having been subject to cyberbullying in the previous months. One in 11 admitted to having taken part in cyberbullying. More than 16% reported having received abusive texts outside of school hours. Nearly 18% reported that they had embarrassing or nasty pictures or video clips taken of them. Some 12.3% had nasty web postings made about them. More than one in ten children are going through this.